Draft EIS in the Proposed Wilderness and Roadless Area Management Sec- Tion

Return to Table of Contents Roadless Areas Appendix C Recommended Wilderness and roadless area management Introduction This appendix describes factors used to evaluate roadless areas on the White River NF for their recommendation as Wilderness. A series of individual reports summarizes the 37 areas found to be both capable and available as potential Wilderness. Included for each area is a description of its physical and biological features, recreational opportunities, resources, and land uses. Each report also conveys the results of assessing its capability, availability, and need for Wilder- ness recommendation. Past roadless area inventories (RARE and RARE II) have been used to identify wilderness resources on the White River NF. See Analysis of the Management Situation, pages 3-64 to 3-68, for a summary of these findings and the process used in revising the Forest Plan. This process is further described in Chapter 3 of the Draft EIS in the proposed Wilderness and roadless area management sec- tion. FSH 1909.12 outlines how to conduct an inventory and evaluation of roadless areas for potential Wilderness designation, as the next sections describe. Inventory of potential Wilderness Roadless areas are deemed qualified to be entered in the inventory of potential Wilderness if, in addition to meeting the statutory definition of Wilderness, they: • do not contain facilities for purposes of travel by vehicles greater than 50 inches in width, except as permitted in areas east of the 100th meridian; • contain 5,000 acres or more; • contain fewer than 5,000 acres but: (a) are manageable in their natural condition due to physiography of vegetation, (b) are self-contained ecosystems, or (c) are contiguous to existing Wilderness, primitive areas, administration- endorsed wilderness, or roadless areas in other federal ownership and contain 500 acres or more. If an area contained a road accessing a physical improvement (for maintenance of the facility, to provide a right-of-way etc.) then the road and the feature were excluded from the inventory. Additional improvements that were excluded included reservoirs, pipelines above and below ground, canals, ditches, aqueducts, Draft Environmental Impact Statement C __ 1 Appendix C water diversion structures, stock tanks, power transmission lines, telephone lines, cables and buildings. These elements were excluded because they have perma- nent structures or facilities that will require maintenance on an annual basis, fre- quently by means of motorized vehicles. Evaluation of potential Wilderness The inventory of potential Wilderness was evaluated based on the three tests of capability, availability, and need, which assessed each area's wilderness characteristics, its value relative to other resources, and the perceived need to add this site to the National Wilderness Preservation System. Capability The capability of a potential Wilderness is defined in FSH 1909.12-7.21 as ``the degree to which the area contains the basic characteristics that make it suitable for Wilderness designation without regard to its availability or need as Wilder- ness.'' Among the characteristics analyzed were environment, challenge, outdoor recreation opportunities, special features, and manageability. Areas inventoried for Wilderness potential with the highest capability included the following: Black Lakes West, Derby, Spraddle Creek, Deep Creek, Homestake, Red Table, Trea- sure Mountain, Ute Pass, Acorn Creek and Big Ridge. This is shown in Table C-1. Availability All NFS lands found to meet Wilderness capability requirements generally are available for consideration as Wilderness. However, this availability is con- strained by a determination of the value of and need for the wilderness resource relative to the value of and need for other resources from the site. To be available for Wilderness, the wilderness values of the resource, both tangible and intan- gible, should exceed the value of other resources that formal Wilderness designation would preclude. In addition, constraints and encumbrances on lands may govern the availability of lands for Wilderness. The Forest Service should have sufficient control to prevent development of unresolvable, incompatible uses that would lessen wilderness character and potential. Lands that generally are best suited for development and intensive management for sustained-yield production or resources other than Wil- derness include the following: • areas in which the need for increased water production and onsite storage is vital; • lands that are needed for application of wildlife management measures of considerable magnitude; • highly mineralized areas of strategic and economic importance; • areas containing natural phenomena of unique or outstanding nature where public access and development is needed; C __ 2 White River National Forest Roadless Areas • lands meeting clearly documented resource demands such as timber, min- eral production or developed recreation such as winter sports sites; • lands committed through contractual agreements for use, purposes, or activities not in concert with the requirements of the Wilderness Act. Need FSH 1909.12-7.23 directs the Forest Service to ``determine the need for an area to be designated as Wilderness through an analysis of the degree to which it con- tributes to the local and national distribution of Wilderness.`` Need is addressed on a national basis and is evaluated in terms of the geographic distribution of areas, representation of landforms and ecosystems, and the presence of wildlife expected to be visible in Wilderness. Assessment of need is divided into two cat- egories: biological need (landform representation and biodiversity) and social need (outdoor recreation opportunities). Only areas determined to be both capable and available for Wilderness were considered for their need. Biological need. Wilderness in Colorado has been labelled ``rock and ice Wilder- ness'' because it generally is at a high elevation and features a limited range of plant communities. Analysis of roadless areas on the White River NF prioritized the need for a number of lower-elevation vegetation types not well represented in Wilderness on the Forest or in Region 2 as a whole. These included grass-forb, oakbrush, shrub, sagebrush, snowberry, pinyon-juniper, and ponderosa pine. The designation of Wilderness at lower elevations (where development pressures are the highest) will provide secure habitat and sanctuary for species that depend on this ecosystem type, as well as increase the acreage of the wilderness system in which these ecosystems are present. The following potential Wilderness areas were identified that meet the highest biological need for lower-elevation plant communities: Big Ridge, Dome Peak, Red Dirt, Williams Fork, Lower Piney, Sweetwater, Hardscrabble, Adam Moun- tain, Basalt Mountain, Red Table, Sloan Peak, Assignation Ridge, and North Woody. This is shown in Table C-1. Social need. The demand for Wilderness increases with an increased population base and a growing awareness of the value of Wilderness for outdoor recreation. Population growth throughout the area of the White River NF is continuing, with sustained annual growth rates of more than 5% in some counties. Moreover, traffic volumes along the Interstate 70 corridor have steadily increased in recent years; a reasonable assumption is that this traffic represents an increase in use of Wilderness on the Forest. However, local transportation trends and nationwide travel patterns have not significantly changed Wilderness use. Although temporal use patterns show that capacity has been reached in some areas, especially dur- ing peak use times, weekday, winter, and off-peak travel has not reached capacity within many of the areas on the White River NF. About 38% of the White River NF and 23% of all NFS lands are designated as Wilderness. Wilderness opportunities in Colorado are fairly well distributed across the western portion of the state and are easily accessible to the population Draft Environmental Impact Statement C __ 3 Appendix C centers of Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo. The social need for Wilder- ness is met by existing Wilderness on the Forest and elsewhere in Colorado. Several of the counties in the White River NF planning area have open space councils that have been successful in acquiring conservation easements for wildlife habitat and outdoor recreation. The Colorado Division of Wildlife has recreation leases on several state land parcels adjacent to the White River NF. While these opportunities generally are increasing, there also are private lands where historic public use had been permitted but now is prohibited. Summary The greatest documented need for new Wilderness is based on the biological of need need evaluation. Capable and available roadless areas that would contribute to evaluation meeting landform and ecosystem diversity were previously listed. The social need for Wilderness is less clear because of the large acreage of Wilderness already present on the White River NF and throughout Colorado. Wilderness recommendations by alternative Wilderness recommendations vary by alternative. Table C-2 lists which areas have been allocated to management area 1.2 (recommended Wilderness). The effects of these allocations are presented in Chapter 3, Topic 4, of the Draft EIS: recommended Wilderness and roadless area management. Alternatives C, D, E and I contain Wilderness recommendations and are listed in the table. Alterna- tives B and F do

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